A Question of SECession

Rudi Keller

Saturday

Oct 29, 2011 at 12:01 AMOct 29, 2011 at 7:42 PM

At issue: Should Missouri cast off the ties that, from its beginnings, nurtured it to its current prosperity and instead adhere to a new alliance where its place would be uncertain and its voice possibly diminished?

Indecision seems to be our answer. Whether it is today as the University of Missouri considers jumping from the Big 12 to the Southeastern Conference or 150 years ago when the state vacillated between the Union and the Confederacy, key leadership seems unable to make up its mind.

In both instances, outside forces seem to have grabbed control of the situation in a way that could result in a decision by default. And if matters today turn out as they did in the Civil War, Missouri will be in far worse shape as a result.

As many readers are aware, all this year I have tracked the history of the Civil War in Missouri in the Tribune series “Life During Wartime.” And one of the most astonishing aspects of that study is the number of times I have bumped into current issues and events that parallel our past.

Take Mamtek. Moberly is facing $57.3 million in bond payments resulting from a questionable decision to borrow money for a startup company. As the Civil War began, state government was buckling under the weight of bond debt issued for the big 19th Century start-ups, the railroads.

Now I see parallels again in MU’s wavering commitment to the Big 12. Some are easy to spot, while others require a little bit of knowledge about how Missouri wound up staying in the Union throughout the war.

The most obvious parallel is that by leaving the Big 12, Missouri will be joining a new conference where all the schools save one are in states that were part of the Confederacy.

Dig a little deeper and you will find that MU was a founding member of what is now known as the Big 12. Way back in 1908, with the universities of Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and Washington University in St. Louis, they created the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association. The first conference realignment took place in 1920, and the MVIAA, known informally as the “Big Six,” consisted of Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma. Other schools that broke away became today’s Missouri Valley Conference.

Note those are all states that remained part of the Union during the Civil War, or were territories controlled by the Union.

Now for the history lesson. When the territory that is now Missouri became part of the United States through the Louisiana Purchase, the cost was borne by all the taxpayers of the United States. Settlers rushed in and the boom times began, both in St. Louis and the interior, most notably at Franklin in Howard County.

Unionists in the Missouri used that fact as one reason why Missouri could not legally secede after Abraham Lincoln’s election sparked an exodus of Deep South states. They also argued that ties of patriotism and commerce made the state a better fit with the industrial North than the agrarian South.

But secessionists, most importantly Gov. Claiborne Fox Jackson – the Brady Deaton of this story – wanted to break those ties. A quick, early decision would have given the state great power and prestige in the fledgling Confederacy – it had more men of military age than any other slave state and more factories too.

And Jackson could have poised Missouri for that move in January of 1861 if he had seized the Federal Arsenal in St. Louis when it had fewer than 100 men guarding the enormous cache of weapons there. Instead, delaying action, Jackson asked for a State Convention to study the matter, and it didn’t give him what he wanted. Instead, it voted 89-1 to remain in the Union.

So Jackson maneuvered another way, asking for siege guns after the Confederacy was formed and calling both a special legislative session and a “training” camp for the state militia in May, after open hostilities started at Fort Sumter. But by that time, Federal power had grown. The Arsenal was firmly held. And both the militia and the siege guns were captured.

Soon Missouri was a state at war with the United States while officially still in the Union. That is another parallel to our modern tale of indecision. Missouri is officially part of the Big 12, but the conference made no mention of that in a news release Friday announcing that West Virginia had joined. By the way, West Virginia was formed in the Civil War by Unionists who broke away from the mother state of Virginia because they opposed the Confederacy.

From spring, through summer and into the fall of 1861, war raged in the state. The Missouri State Guard – you could call them a major independent at that time – won praise and help from the Confederacy but was essentially on its own. Jackson’s contortions to drag the state into the Confederacy became more and more desperate.

Finally on Oct. 28, 1861, Jackson – now a fugitive – got what he wanted from the Legislature. Meeting in Neosho, the General Assembly, which in all likelihood did not have a quorum to represent the majority of Missourians’ views, voted to take the state out of the Union.

A few days later Missouri became the 12th state in the Confederacy. But the move had little practical effect. The indecision had allowed the state to become a battleground, firmly under overall Union control even if ongoing guerrilla war devastated the countryside and impoverished many.

Along with the Big 12 welcoming West Virginia, last week saw a brief posting on the SEC website of what would have been an Oct. 22 news release welcoming Missouri. The posting came late in the week, long after the date on the news release. And Deaton, who has in hand the authority to make a decision on conference affiliation, has not said which way he will turn.

Another parallel. Throughout the spring – and even for a time after hostilities broke out – Jackson protested that he was loyal to the Constitution of the United States, if not the regime then in charge. He praised the South but did not publicly declare, without reservation, that he wanted to join it. All the while he was in contact with Southern leaders and negotiating Missouri’s acceptance into their group.

Deaton has been saying nice things about the Big 12 as well, all the while negotiating to leave. And he has, despite indicating he was on the verge of a decision, not said what the school will do.

At the end of the war, Missouri’s economy was in a shambles, the South was bitter because the help that Missouri could have provided if it had moved early had instead become a burden, and the North was resentful because of the treasure and troops consumed subduing the state.

A bad outcome in the athletic conference decision won’t have that kind of impact. I haven’t seen any report that the SEC has grown weary of the courtship or shut the door on Mizzou.

A little resentment may be creeping in as our Big 12 rival Kansas has already indicated it won’t continue the emotion-charged contests that gripped the attention of both states.

But waiting too long could leave the MU without a conference home – a quick way to become impoverished in today’s intercollegiate athletic system dominated by barrels of TV cash.

Of course, maybe the Missouri Valley Conference will take us back.

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